January 6, 2018

    Today is an Argentine national holiday – Epiphany. In the Roman Catholic church, it is the day that the three kings visited the holy family and Jesus, after his birth.  When we ended our cruise in San Antonio on December 8, 2017, it was a Chilean national Catholic holiday.

    About January 3^rd the Christmas decoration on the ship had been packed away.

    It was a sunny morning, temperature was 17°C with a light breeze. We had breakfast in the Lido buffet and shared a table with Jan and Doug and talked to Shin and Joyce.  Then we gathered our carry-on luggage from the stateroom and waited to be called for transport to the cruise passenger terminal to collect our luggage. We took a ship’s transfer to the Buenos Aires airport, which is south west of Buenos Aires.  It included a drive to the Tigre River Delta, which is north, where we took a one hour river cruiser ride. The traffic was terrible and the buses was very late. While waiting we connected to the terminal Wi-Fi to find another Air Canada email.  Yesterday we had notification that our 5:30 p.m. flight to Toronto via Santiago, Chile would be 45 minutes later than originally scheduled. Now it was scheduled for 8:40 p.m. over 3 hours late.  Later, while in line to check in with Air Canada, there were a couple of other Air Canada emails changing the time back and forth ten minutes.

    The tour was supposed to begin at 9:15, the bus finally arrived at 10:25 and then took 15 minutes to get back into traffic. Everyone was patient since we could see the problem as we stood hoping, a bus could come into a parking slot, load quickly and then back out and go. Once on our way, we drove through Buenos Aires city into Buenos Aires province to the town of San Isidro. 

    Our guide Laura, explained to us that the passenger terminal is just four years old and not very big since the cruise season is only four months long.  Today was a problem since the Norwegian Sun was also in port to disembark passengers and get new ones, just like the Zaandam. There are probably over 3,500 people getting on and off the cruise ships today. She told us the Argentina has 24 provinces and 40 million people of whom about 17 million live in the greater Buenos Aires region. Like in Uruguay for elections, Argentinians must vote or be fined. The Rio de la Plata is 75 kilometers across to Uruguay here, 220 kilometers across at the Atlantic Ocean but quite shallow at about two meters and swimming in the river in Buenos Aires is prohibited.  The river has navigation channels that are constantly dredged.

   As we travelled out of the port area we passed a double towered building which is the power plant for the port, supplying power for the ships and the port equipment. We passed a red roofed Fishing Club along the river and the City Airport which has flights within Argentina and Bolivia, Brazil and Chile.  More highlights were the University of Argentina campus, the Soccer Field at the University of Argentina, the Museo Malvinas (about the Falklands War), a police station, the blue and white Hotel Vincente Lopez, an Outlet store near the Estasion Central and horses grazing in fields. During the 74-day 1982 Falklands War, of the South American countries, only Chile did not support Argentina.  Chile helped supply the British forces. When we arrived in San Isidro, about 45 minutes from the cruise terminal, we visited the Parroquía de la Cathedral San Isidro.  It was a lovely stone Roman Catholic church with a tall steeple and beautiful wooden doors.  Inside was bright.  There were stained glass windows high in the walls.  Outside there was a weekly handcraft market on the sloping grounds.  During the half hour stop we walked a few of the cobblestoned streets, while others bought coffee or gelato. The sky had a scattering of small fluffy white clouds and the temperature was about 20°C.                  Steps 3,281

    Our destination was the Tigre River Delta, which is a series of many small rivers and streams forming a 21,000 square kilometer fresh water delta.  Here people have bought property on the tiny islands and built homes or cottages with docks to secure their boats.  There are no bridges for vehicles, but the community has boats for everything – the garbage boat; the supermarket boat that stops at your dock if you leave a shopping bag on the dock post, then it will honk and you come out and make your purchase; a police boat; a fire fighting boat; a post office boat; many water taxi boats; a party boat; an ambulance boat and so on. There are 17 schools for the area children and little churches on their own islands.  We passed the San Marie de Lujan College Church as we entered the resort town of Tigre, named because of the jaguars and pumas in the area when the Spanish were exploring in the 1700s. Once on the tour boat for the hour long ride on the water, we passed the Amusement park beside the Water Park; Chinatown; the brick Government house, since Tigre is the capital of the province; the early 1900s French style casino that is now a Fine Arts Museum; the boat storage hangars (the delta’s “parking garage”); cottages and homes of all descriptions; a school; a chapel; a supermarket boat; a fire fighting boat; a police boat; and people zooming around on jet skis or gently rowing passengers in English rowboats.  It was a nice warm afternoon for floating on the river.

   Back in the bus, we passed the Tigre train station and were told it only costs 8 pesos (about 50 cents) to take the train from Buenos Aires. Next, we drove on the freeway about an hour to get to the Buenos Aires International airport which is south and east of Buenos Aires.  We thanked the guide and driver and collected out luggage and were in the Air Canada check in line about 3.p.m. We were an hour in line before we had our boarding passes and were told that Air Canada would be booking us a new flight home from Toronto, since we would be missing our connecting flight. Then another 15 minutes to go through security to the final line for passport control and the stamp for leaving Argentina. Another 30 minutes and we were ready to find a restaurant for food as we finished breakfast on the ship early in the morning and only had an Alfajore cookie (like a small Wagon Wheel cookie) and coffee on the river tour boat about 1:30 p.m. We bought three empanadas to share and a drink, then found a table to set up to check emails and see Air Canada sent any other emails – just one to give us the Gate number in Buenos Aires airport.  We also bought a box of Alfajore cookies to take home.  By then there was just an hour before boarding so we walked around the airport to get the remainder of our steps for the day.      Steps 11912

   The plane took off at 9:25 p.m. and landed in Santiago, Chile, at 11:15 p.m., just under two hours for the flight. We were served a snack on the flight, then, 20 minutes before the plane landed the interior was sprayed with an insecticide, not harmful to humans (same as when landing in Australia). All passengers, even those continuing to Toronto, needed to leave the plane with all the carry-on luggage, go into the terminal and go through Santiago airport security and wait in the waiting room for the flight to be ready or boarding. It was a new crew and the plane took off at 12:45 a.m. (10:45 p.m. Toronto time) landing at 9:12 a.m. in Toronto, almost a 10.5 hour flight. We were served an evening meal about an hour after takeoff then people tried to sleep.  There were four or five times when the seat belt sign went on due to turbulence, but they were gentle. About two hours before landing, breakfast was served with a choice of an omelet or pancakes with a fruit salad. The flight from Santiago, Chile was 8,929 kilometers.

   We were not finished with delays yet, the connecting flight left before we landed so we were rescheduled for the 9 p.m. flight Sunday night, earlier flights were full.